Miley Cyrus crushes 2013 with a Wrecking Ball and is my choice for campaign of the year.

January 2, 2014

Nothing can stop her…

My choice for the best integrated marketing campaign of 2013 goes not to a product, service or new-fangled bit of technology but, rather, to a young woman, Miley Cyrus. Maybe you’ve heard of her? Ostensibly, my selection is based on efforts made by Team Miley on behalf of her fourth studio album, Bangerz.

The lead single “We Can’t Stop” was released on June 3, 2013, and peaked at number two on the US Billboard Hot 100. The second single “Wrecking Ball” was released on August 25, 2013, and became Cyrus’ first single to peak in the top position in the United States. Its accompanying music video currently holds the Vevo record for most views in the first 24 hours of its release, and the record for being the fastest video to reach 100 million views on the service.

Impressive.

But what I’m really talking about is the utter and total transformation of a human being. It wasn’t very long ago Miley Cyrus went by the stage name Hannah Montana, a tween girl portraying a country singer on a reasonably popular Disney TV show by that same name. Having three young daughters, I watched my share of Hannah Montana. It was okay in that mildly annoying fashion most Disney product is: goofy, improbable, an inane laugh track. My girls and I preferred Sponge Bob but Hannah Montana or iCarly would occasionally interrupt the shenanigans in Bikini Bottom.

Not long after Miley entered her adolescence the show ended. Then nothing much happened. Actually that’s not true. Cyrus recorded some music. Made some cameos here and there, including getting filmed smoking a bong! But basically she was fading from relevance. That is until she blew up MTV’s VMA awards twerking her way into every conversation on earth.

Do I even need to elaborate? Her performance didn’t just dominate the proverbial water cooler. It was a wrecking ball. If you didn’t see the thing live you heard ALL ABOUT IT. Then you watched it. Then you had an opinion about it, which you shared. With EVERYBODY.

Proving indisputably that no ink is bad ink Miley’s mildly perverse display was a game changer for the young lass. Suddenly Cyrus was relevant again. Big time. And not as Hannah Montana. But some new creature. Sexy, flamboyant, even ridiculous. All of the above. When she later released the video for Wrecking Ball it was like dropping an atom bomb on top of a volcano. So far, nearly 500 million people have watched this ditty on You Tube alone. God knows how many impressions, how many conversations it started.

Needless to say, the record is doing well.

By comparison, the self-proclaimed “genius” Kanye West may have put out a better album with Yeezus but no matter it faded quickly. For all of Kanye’s self-possessed posturing one wag of Miley’s tongue wiped his Selfie from the global zeitgeist. Along with, by the way, the baby he had with his reality show wife, Kim Kardashian.

Meh.

That’s a lot of famous flesh that done got Twerked! Frankly, nothing else in the TMZ lexicon can touch Miley and her Wrecking Ball.

The Twerking. The album. The video. The song. Hell, even the bong. For this Miley Cyrus is my choice for campaign of the year. Like it or not.